ganymede.
after the landing, an unreasoning fear gripped steve tightly. it wasn't anything he could put his finger on, but he felt it gnawing at the fringes of his mind, probing, seeking, thrusting for a way in. there was nothing to be afraid of, and steve smoked one cigarette after another while the six-man parties disembarked to take up their beater-stations on the edges of the square.
ganymede, he recited to himself, is the largest satellite in the solar system. 664,200 miles from jupiter, it has a diameter of thirty two hundred and six miles, or bigger than the planet mercury and almost as large as pluto. it swings around jupiter in a little over seven earth days and in appearance the moonscape's enough like luna to be a twin-brother, except for fat, bloated jupiter hanging in the sky.
what was there to be afraid of? steve didn't know. his brother had died on ganymede—and the circumstances of charlie's death still bordered on the mysterious. well, he'd see for himself about that. did the fear crawl around the edges of his brain because he thought teejay was responsible? but that didn't make sense, for to a certain degree he'd thought that all along. unless the appalling thought of having to fight teejay and her whole loyal crew had taken hold of him unconsciously.
"what are you moping about, boy?"
"huh? oh, kevin. nothing much, i guess. i—"
"you look to me like you've seen a ghost. what is it, scared?"
"yeah. yeah, i guess so."
"so what? buck up, boy."
"i don't want to be scared, kevin."
"who does?"
"that's not what i mean. it's one thing to say that if you aren't—"
"who isn't? don't look at me, boy. and didn't you watch all the men trooping outside with the blood drained from their faces, and their eyes sort of big and too bright behind the face-plates? we're all scared."
"but why?"
"mean to say you spent so much time on zoology and forgot about other things? like, for instance, ganymede-fear?"
"huh? how's that?"
"everyone is afraid, steve. everyone. whenever a man gets near ganymede, he suddenly becomes afraid. it's some sort of a psychological or maybe para-psychological phenomenon and none of the medicos could ever figure it out. it isn't the kind of fear that paralyzes, boy, but still, it holds on all the time a man's on ganymede and it doesn't leave until he blasts off again. didn't you ever hear about that?"
"no. that is, i knew it happened somewhere, but i forgot where."
"well, that's all there is to it, boy."
"all! don't you think it's enough? something lurks out there, something makes people afraid, and we've never been able to find out why, but you say—"
teejay came up and smiled at them, but there was something grim about her smile. "you can always tell when someone comes to ganymede for the first time. he's jumpier. just relax, stedman. by the time they start beating the anthrovacs in toward the gordak you'll be feeling better—and raring to go to work with that oxygen-jag stunt of yours, too." and she added, "say, have you been watching your stone worm?"
"he sure has," kevin told her. "he took me down there yesterday and that worm's been growing fat on all the sand he's fed it. sand—for food, that's what the worm eats. imagine how that would settle the over-population problems on earth if people, too, could eat sand."
"yes, and then—" teejay was speaking again—but words, just words, and steve stopped listening. it occurred to him all at once that they were engrossed in their meaningless conversation for one reason only—to keep the fear from their minds. if you thought about something else, the fear would retreat at least in part, and if you could hold a conversation about everything and nothing, that was even better.
steve almost jumped off the floor when a metallic voice blared forth from the loudspeaker, echoing and re-echoing in the near-empty room.
"captain! captain, this is moretti, group seven."
"go ahead, moretti," teejay said into the mike. "i'm listening."
"who the devil's on radar, captain?"
"why—no one! we forgot."
"there's a ship coming down. we can see it plain as day out here."
"what ship?" teejay asked softly, but they all knew the question was totally unnecessary.
moretti's voice jumped an octave as he cried: "it's barling!"
